Survivor describes slaughter in Mexico

An Ecuadorian migrant identified as Luis Fredy Lala Pomavilla rests at a hospital in Matamoros, Mexico, in the wake of the carnage.

MEXICO CITY — The survivor of a massacre on a ranch 85 miles south of Brownsville trudged into a navy checkpoint — a bullet wound in his neck — with a tale almost too gruesome even for a country locked in the throes of a vicious and bloody drug war.

He and fellow migrants from Central and South America, he told authorities Monday, were headed to the Texas border with the hope of making it into the United States.

Instead, everyone but he had been shot dead — slaughtered by gangsters even as they pleaded for their lives.

Mexican marines discovered the 72 bodies — 58 men and 14 women — on Tuesday afternoon after a skirmish with gangsters outside the town of San Fernando.

The migrants were slain by members of the ruthless Zetas gang, Mexican officials said Wednesday.

Adm. Jose Luis Vergara, a Mexican naval spokesman, said that although the Ecuadorian migrant also was shot by the gangsters, he managed to escape.

Mexican officials did not explain at a Wednesday news conference why it took so long to discover the bodies or release the information.

They also didn’t explain the lingering confusion about victims’ identities, how they were killed or how long they had been dead.

“We still can’t determine, much less give information on, the manner in which they exactly lost their lives,” said Ricardo Najera, a spokesman for Mexico’s attorney general.

The victims appeared to be from Ecuador, Brazil, Honduras and El Salvador, officials said, though the information largely is based on the survivor’s account.

“It’s absolutely outrageous and demands the full condemnation of everyone in our society,” said Alejandro Poire, the government’s spokesman for security matters.

The Associated Press reported the bodies were found in a room, some piled on top of each other.

The survivor told prosecutors he was with a group of 75 people being held at the ranch, and that he heard pleas for mercy and shooting as he fled.

After being alerted to the killings, marines manning a highway checkpoint nearby attacked the ranch backed by helicopters.

Three gunmen and a marine were killed in the shootout.

The troops seized 21 rifles, 6,500 bullets and several vehicles that had been disguised as belonging to police and the army.

Mexico’s Gulf Coast is a heavily used corridor for migrants hoping to cross illegally into the United States.

Marines and soldiers have freed hundreds of migrants held in gangster safe houses in Reynosa, Matamoros and other cities in recent months. Several local, state and federal police officers have been arrested on suspicion of aiding in migrant abductions.

“This discovery once again demonstrates the extreme danger and violence that Central Americans face on their treacherous journey north, as well as the Mexican government’s abject failure to protect them,” human rights organization Amnesty International said in a statement.

Gangland violence has exploded this year across northeastern Mexico — an area bordered by the Rio Grande and including the cities of Monterrey and Tampico — as the Zetas have gone to war with their former allies, the Gulf Cartel, and other bands.

At least 600 people have been killed in the fighting in recent months, according to media tallies. Untold numbers have simply disappeared — sometimes turning up in mass graves.

Known for its bass fishing and dove hunting, the San Fernando area long has been popular with outdoors enthusiasts from Texas and other states. But a group of Houston dove hunters reported being robbed in an area field last fall by heavily armed men.

The bodies of 15 presumed gang members also were dumped recently just outside San Fernando, on the main highway leading to the Texas border.

Newspapers in Matamoros and Ciudad Victoria, the cities nearest San Fernando, didn’t carry news of the massacre on their websites Wednesday.

Reporters in the region say they have been scared into silence by threats from the Zetas and other criminal gangs.